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Food not bombs is a good organization for distributing that stuff (expired food).  If there is one in the area they'll come and pick it up and distribute it.  They only take vegan stuff though.

A lot of local food pantries will as well, but not all of them.  I know in my area the Salvation army will not.

Out of curiosity, if you took the top 5% say of the rich, and made them live for a week, every year on the National average wage, in "average" accomodation etc, what would be the result? I mean just take the statistical norm for everything and let them at it. While doing a 40 hour week. Sort your own food and transport. And pay the weeks bills at the end of it.



I'd expect to watch living standards soar year on year.

I'd expect to watch them go down.  They'd do it and go "well, I did this when I was living at average wages, and if you did too you wouldn't be so miserable, I didn't need all the resources I was allotted, you don't either"

What makes them losers is that they want to be rich OR poor in a system in which the rich needlessly fuck the poor.

Oh, man.  How I wish I could staple that onto the foreheads of some of the people I know.

This.  This is a very, very good line.

I've been trying to think of how to say that for about 10 years.

Personally I think you've managed to say it a good few times but never so succinctly. So what's the alternative? Whether you're rich or aspiring to be rich you're buying into the con. The rich are as bad off as the poor in a lot of ways. Specifically because it's never enough. Doesn't matter how much they have or don't have, they're junkies, hooked on more - slaves to the impossible dream of having all the fucking bananas and unable to rest or be happy with what they have.

I'd preach the gospel of "ENOUGH" but who the fuck would listen and why the fuck should I care? I have enough. It's not much but it's enough. "Enough for what?" they might ask if they weren't too busy trying to work out how to get their hands on all my bananas. The answer, if they bothered to listen, is - enough to live my life like I fucking mean it and take every little thing that smells like fun TO THE FUCKING WALL!!! Instead of pissing my life away chasing boring yellow fruit.

Sounds kinda Buddhist.

I made about 10k on bitcoin, by buying in early.  I'm fully out of it now though.  I only invested like $30, so it was sweet, like a lottory win, but I'm glad I got out.  It's not stable at all.

Tell her the truth, that way she'll know how lucky she is to get away before things get any more serious.

And then go drown your sorrow with an expensive hooker, I'm sure she'll understand your refined tastes.

Pink Floyd's the Wall is pretty brain fucking

Fellini's satyricon made me feel like I was on acid watching it.

The Wall Street Journal seems to be making bad suggestions.  That surprises me since I remembered them being reasonably sensible when the Republicans were pulling their initial hostage taking over the debt ceiling.

You're on crack.  The WSJ has been a Murdock rag for years.

I may have had them confused with some other mouthpiece for the upper class.

To guarantee that the Christian end of the world never comes we need someone who firmly believes that it is coming.  According to the bible we shall not know the hour or day of its coming, so as long as someone knows each day, they have to be wrong.

no.  I got the numbers off Wikipedia, and it's civilian guns.  That deosn't include the military, I don't think it includes cops.

Let me expand on that. 

Okay, so we have this huge population, and we have about one gun per two people.  This obviously makes for a potentially dangerous situation.

But if Jon Q Public can be controlled anyway, by popular media and pre-packaged, shrink-wrapped "resistance movements" provided by the same people fucking John Q Public, then the potential danger is meaningless.

Think of it this way...My dog is HUGE, and is perfectly capable of ripping me literally limb from limb.  However, there's no danger, because my dog is incapable of forming the intent to do me harm.  It not only doesn't occur to him, it CAN'T occur to him.  It's simply not in his mental framework.

So nuts with guns?  They're a danger to you and I...Recent events have proven as much.  But a danger to the government?  Not even close.

It's actually even more than that, we have 88 guns per 100 people.

The Wall Street Journal seems to be making bad suggestions.  That surprises me since I remembered them being reasonably sensible when the Republicans were pulling their initial hostage taking over the debt ceiling.

it's apples to apples for terrible people, and includes cards like "picking up girls at the abortion clinic".

and "a pile of dead babies"

It's also free to print out online if you are broke and don't want to pay for a set.

http://cardsagainsthumanity.com/

How are the Naxalite areas for womens rights?  If you know them in any detail, that is.  I would imagine the Maoists would in theory be all for equal rights, but theory is frequently compromised when working with the local culture, especially when one is aiming for a rural insurgency.  I had friends who said the Maoist areas were very clean and safe, but this was nearly a decade ago now, so lots has changed in India.

You know, I'm not sure about their stance on women's rights.  First of all, I've never had the sense of a central Naxalite organization, but the Indian newspapers I've read typically just report on another dozen police killed in Naxalite ambush and things like that, and don't really go into details about the issue.  (The police don't seem to be able to get a handle on the Naxalites at all; last I heard, the government was mulling over sending in regular army troops, because that's working so well in Jammu and Kashmir  )  At least some of the Naxalite groups have essentially degenerated into gangs who abuse and extort the villagers they're supposed to be "liberating." 

I've been stuck deep in dissertation writing for a while now, so I haven't been able to get to it, but I want to read Red Sun by Sudeep Chakravarti - I gather he's a reporter who's spent quite a bit of time with the Maoists in Naxalite-affected areas.  I can't say how good or accurate it is, but it's the only in-depth account that I can think of off the top of my head.

I've never been to the eastern half of India, so I can't say, but my wife tells me that men from Bihar have a reputation of being thugs - not in the Kali-worshiping sense, but just goons - and Bihar generally as being a land of criminals, but as I say, that's just the reputation, I don't know how much truth there is to it.

I'll have to give that a read then.  Thanks again.

Also, everyone, you may want to know a crowd of young Indians decided to demonstrate in Delhi on Christmas Eve.  There is a strong feeling that the current government simply does not care about the ongoing assaults on women and recent incidents, such as the one Roger posted about, have confirmed that feeling.  So, protest time.

The police responded by dispersing the protestors with lathis.  A lathi, for those who don't know, is a cane with a metal tip.  Used in coordination by riot police, they are very capable of crippling people, or even killing them.  Over a dozen lathi charges were carried out against unarmed protestors, with more than a few incidents of the police beating protestors lying prone and posing no threat into unconsciousness.

There are laws about where to protest in Delhi, and some of those laws were broken.  But nothing justified that kind of response from the police there.

I'm glad to hear that people are protesting.  Maybe if the police were using their lathi on rapists instead of protestors things would be different.

What about upper class tax raises? I'm reckoning we're not going to get one of those, or an appreciable one.

I think we'll get a small tax increase on the upper class, since that has been a huge campaign issue for the democrats.  On the other hand the whole thing with the guns may have swung public opinion enough back to the right that the Republicans figure they don't have to compromise on that at all.

How about the bowling ball that was being used when Eris showed up to dictate the principia?

Which?  They were sitting in the bowling alley coffee shop.

Hmm, maybe the coffee cup one of them was drinking from then.